The Justices of Easy Love: Why Champagne Friendships Are a Colossal Fraud
There is much talk, in this hyperconnected and splendidly superficial era, about the value of bonds. We count them like coins, these bonds, we display them on social networks as trophies of a successful life, an incessant parade of dazzling smiles and virtual toasts. But try, just for a moment, to turn off the blinding light of success. Lower the curtain on the perpetual party. And observe who remains there, in the shadows, waiting for you with a bitter coffee and an uncomfortable word. You will discover, with a sense of vertigo, that the number of true allies shrinks to a handful of faces. Perhaps to just one. It is the ruthless and wonderful law of authentic affection, the only one worth remembering: do not trust those who enter your life when you are happy. But hold tight to those who have known your difficult moments and have decided to stay.
It is a manifesto of human resistance, this, a warning that sounds like heresy in a world that worships the god of fun and ease. Why should anyone distrust happiness? Why look with suspicion at the outstretched hand offered in the moment of triumph? The answer is simple, so simple as to be brilliant: because that is when you are most naive, most vulnerable, most subservient to the consent of others. Happiness, we know, blinds. It clouds judgment. It attracts like flies to honey a breed of opportunists, bootlickers, digital courtiers ready to erect altars to your fortune to gather its crumbs. They are the companions of the feast, very skilled at climbing the mountain of your successes, very skilled at fleeing at the first crackle of a landslide.
These people, the so-called fair-weather friends, are merchants of illusions. Their affection is conditional on one single, miserable variable: your ability to continue to be a source of advantages, reflections of glory, pleasant occasions. Theirs is an investment, not a bond. They calculate the return, they weigh the benefits. Your person is just the container, often irrelevant, of a well-being they want to enjoy. It is the friendship of "what can you do for me," a fixed-term contract that expires the very moment you stop being useful, entertaining, winning. And then, goodbye. They disappear into thin air, without explanations, without regrets. They leave only silence and the bitter taste of betrayal.
And here comes the beauty. The sublime counterpoint to this mass sycophancy. The silent heroism of those who, instead, are not afraid of your mud. Those who have seen you in pieces, in emotional bankruptcy, with broken bones and shredded pride. That is the moment of truth. The test that unmasks all hypocrisy. While others flee, this rare and precious individual – be it a friend, a lover, a family member – rolls up their sleeves and stays. Not out of duty. Not out of calculation. But by a deliberate, crazy, and magnificently human choice. They recognize in you a value that goes beyond the happy or unhappy circumstance. They see the person, not their bank account or social status.
Staying means getting your hands dirty. It means listening to the same fears for the tenth time. It means lending money you may never see again. It means accepting to be the lightning rod for unjust anger, because it is known that that anger is not for you, but for the world. It is obscure, unpaid work, and yet it is the only one that truly counts. These are the builders of foundations, not the painters of facades. They build your resilience through their silent, stubborn fidelity. They are the living proof that love, the real one, is not a drawing-room sentiment. It is an act of courage. A trench one chooses to share, under the enemy fire of misfortune.
Modern society, with its fetish for mandatory optimism, pushes us to erase pain, to hide difficulties. Showing weakness is a taboo. And so, we become involuntary accomplices in this great charade. We are ashamed of our failures, we hide them, depriving those very rare righteous souls of the chance to do what they do best: stand by our side. We are afraid of being a burden, without understanding that for them we never are. For them, being there in the time of need is a privilege, not an obligation. It is the honor of being considered a safe harbor, a lighthouse in the fog.
So, the blunt and revolutionary advice is this: do the sorting. Take your address book, your contact list, and start deleting. Out with the parasites of well-being, the party-goers. Free yourself from the dead weight of hypocrisy. And then, look around. Who is left? Those two, three names. The ones you can text at three in the morning without having to apologize the next day. The ones who know your cracks and don't pretend not to see them. To those, cling like shipwrecked sailors to the only raft in an ocean of falsehood. Repay them with the same solid currency of loyalty. Because in a world of masks, they are the bare and true face of human solidarity. And that, you can't buy with all the gold in the world.
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🦅 Cheyenne Isa ₿ 🦅
